Why you struggle to lose weight
Understanding energy balance and how your metabolism works is key to help you achieve any body composition goal.
No matter your goal whether that is weight loss, weight maintenance, muscle gain or to put on weight, one of the foundational things to understand is energy balance.
Energy balance is the good old “Calories in Vs Calories out”- but this is a dynamic system and not that simple, which is why people can find it quite confusing.
But luckily for you, I am here to help break it down.
Calories in = All the food and fluids you consume
This is one of the areas in the energy balance equation that you have the most control over. It’s essentially everything you put into your mouth, which your body then turns into energy to be either used right then or else stored for later as glycogen or triglycerides (fat stores).
In todays blog, I am going to focus on the 2nd part of the equation- calories out.
Your TDEE
Total daily energy expenditure (TDEE)
Is an estimation of how many calories you burn per day when exercise is taken into account.
Your TDEE looks at how many calories your body uses each day. This will be different for everyone and is dependent on may factors.
It is comprised of 4 main component which I will go through below:
BMR- Basal Metabolic Rate
This is the amount of energy your body needs to perform vital functions such as your heart beating, to pump blood around your body, to grow your hair & nails, cell repair, brain function, breathing etc.
As you will see this makes up the biggest component of your TDEE, roughly 70% and is directly correlated to your overall body mass. The bigger you are the more calories you need and vice versa as your body needs more energy to maintain these functions in a bigger body. However, one thing to note is that lean body mass requires slightly more calories to maintain that fat. So if you have a larger muscle mass, you are likely to require more calories.
This is another reason why when you lose a large amount of weight and your weight lose starts to plateau, this will be because your BMR has reduced and so has your calorie requirements.
NEAT- Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
NEAT which is the next component of our TDEE and accounts for 15%- which is quite a lot.
This is the energy our body uses for everything that we do that is not sleeping, eating or sports like exercise. Unfortunately this relates to unconscious movement like fidgeting and blinking so it can be hard for you to influence this.
However, within this there is another area that we can control and that is referred to as NEPA- Non-Exercise Physical Activity which includes: walking, taking the stairs, cleaning, pottering around the house, walking around the shops.
This is where we can have a greater impact and it is the most under rated and under utilised tool you can leverage for weight loss or loss maintenance.
3. TEF- Thermic Effect of Feeding
Interestingly TEF makes up 10% of your TDEE.
What is TEF? When we eat, our metabolic rate will increase as it takes energy for the body to digest our food- simply put this is the calories your body needs to digest the food you have just eaten.
However not all foods use up the same amount of energy to be digested and some have a slighter higher thermic effect such as protein which is the highest out of the 3 macronutrients. Another good reason to make sure you are getting enough protein in your diet.
4. EAT- Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
EAT refers to all the planned exercise you do- biking, running, gym, HITT class etc.
As you can see from the diagram, it is the smallest component of our TDEE, making only 5% - which may be a shock to some people.
This is the amount of energy your body uses during planned exercise. This is often over estimated by people and can be hard to calculate. Smart watches aren't very accurate at calculating calories used during exercise, so I wouldn't suggest using that as a good indicator.
Most people tend to focus on exercise to as the best way to "burn” calories- but as you can see it makes up such a small amount of your TDEE, so my biggest advice is when it comes to exercise do something you enjoy.
As you can see there are many different components that make up your TDEE, some of which you have no control over such as your BMR and NEAT levels, but you can have greater influence over NEPA, TEF (via protein) and EAT.
However, if you want better results when it comes to losing weight or weight maintenance, the area you will have the biggest control and influence over is calories in i.e. what foods and drink you consume.
